Poetry, Essays and Art By J.H. Dickinson from All-Creatures.org

Export me

Headlights shift along the road as I sit
in my car,
music blaring,
drowning out the rain.

I look on, bleary eyed morning,
complaining inwardly of a life of
drudgery.

Lorry’s rumble, edge forward alongside.
Cars strain and idle.
A cacophony of human story.
Somehow wrong and
without meaning.

Then you are beside me.
Woolly export.
Faces, eyes, backside, tails.
Squashed in, but clear enough to see
as the transport creeps, edges,
and I can’t look away.

I never do.

I watch you jostle with every judder
of the vehicle.
Where is your destination?
The local slaughter house?
Livestock auction?
Hours and days across Europe?

Does anyone else notice
between rain soaked windscreens?
Wipers swishing with rhythmic intent.
I hope to wash away the image
and change your fate.
But I will never remove the glimpse of you.

The memory.

Traffic surges and you are gone in a rush of diesel.
I imagine, resounding bleats of meaning,
known only to you.
Though I speculate.
Expressions of discomfort:
pain,
sorrow,
misery,
dehydration
and I hope, of anger against us.

The human drudgery rushes forward,
like bad blood
in the circulatory system.
And we disappear on exits and roads to our self-importance.

But I will never forget that transport lorry.
Or countless others,
running these roads.
Feeding the demand of a sorrowful system,
of our systemic damnation.

In the roar of the traffic I imagine
I hear your feint thoughts, echoed:

Do not export me, destroy me, kill me.

Art © J.H. Dickinson

Go on to: Eyes bathed in morning gold
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